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In the Q&A following the world premiere of A Safe Place, Romanian director, Cecilia Ştefǎnescu expressed her appreciation for the audience sticking with the film. It was clear what she meant because A Safe Place is not an easy film. It’s a film for those audiences that are patient, reflective and enjoy peeling away the layers of a film afterward through thought and conversation.

A Safe Place revolves around wife and mother Lucia (Marina Palii). Her husband, Gelu (Virgil Aioanei) is happy that she gave up her job to focus only on her family, but a restlessness stirs. Lucia and Cristina (Bianca Cuculici), an old friend, are joined by their husbands for a vacation to a coastal village. While Cristina’s marriage is filled with love and affection, Lucia rejects her husband’s advances. When she encounters a man from her past, a craving to rediscover the woman she once was compels her to make a decision that could have life-altering consequences.

With its absence of dialogue, and lingering shots, A Safe Place belongs to the art house tradition. Ştefǎnescu and her cinematographer Luchian Ciobanu are careful not to intrude on Lucia’s space. A deep respect is afforded Lucia because Ştefǎnescu chooses not to expose her. Instead, she observes Lucia and allows her to reveal herself in her own time. This restraint is in tune with the rest of the film’s rhythm, where information and characterisation happens at a slower pace.

A Safe Place brims with the confidence of its director. Cecilia knows how the story needs to be told, and she is committed to telling it on its own terms. It is a tough watch, because given the brevity of the dialogue and music, it asks the audience to enter its emotional space, and to be sensitive to body language, gestures and the cinematographic language. Even when there’s a dialogue-driven scene, for example, when they all go out one night and they discuss motorbikes and immigration, Lucia hardly speaks. This film is about what lies beneath the words. And this is a preoccupation of the film, that wants its audience to genuinely see and hear the characters, especially Lucia.

A gentleness runs throughout the story, despite a sense a masculine aggressiveness. If it is a story about a woman in crisis, then it is also about masculinity in crisis. A Safe Place reveals its interlocking layers when we ask what is it about? It’s about a personal and gender crisis, but it’s also about emotional conflict, the loss of love, difficult choices and the desire for peace in one’s life. And how two opposing ideas can be true at the same time. In this case, Lucia loves her son dearly, but her love for him has trapped her in the marriage, and forever connected her to Gelu. Hence, the young boy is both a blessing and a curse.

What is surprising is that A Safe Place is a dark film, but with a genuine warmth and sensitivity. The maturity of Ştefǎnescu’s vision emerges out of the fact that the audience must constantly challenge themselves, because what do we really know about Lucia and her marriage? And once we begin asking questions that only lead us towards uncertainty and more questions, is when we’re beginning to, if not understand, then appreciate Ştefǎnescu’s bold filmmaking.

A Safe Place premiered in the First Feature Competition of the 29th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival